Write on the Bases of Power. (2022, 10 Marks)
To ask about the bases of power is to ask what an agent draws on to win compliance, which is a different question from what power is. The classic answer comes from the social psychologist John R. P. French, writing with Bertram H. Raven (“The Bases of Social Power”, 1959). They treated influence as a change in a target’s beliefs, attitudes or behaviour that an agent brings about.
French and Raven: Five Bases, Then Six
| Base | Ground of compliance | Political illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Coercive | Fear of punishment | Preventive detention; internet shutdowns (65 in India in 2025) |
| Reward | Expectation of benefit | Patronage, contracts, postings |
| Legitimate | Belief in a right to command | Constitutional office; a court order |
| Expert | Belief in superior knowledge | Reserve Bank, public-health advisers |
| Referent | Identification with the holder | M. K. Gandhi‘s moral standing; charismatic leaders |
| Informational | The persuasiveness of the information itself | Control over what citizens know |
The 1959 paper named five bases. Raven added informational power in 1965. It differs from the rest because the change persists even if the source is forgotten. Platform-mediated news has magnified it, and India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats control over data as power needing legal restraint.
The bases also differ in durability. Coercive and reward power last only as long as surveillance or payment does. Legitimate, expert and referent power produce willing compliance, which is why regimes try to convert the first kind into the second. A District Collector combines several bases at once: office (legitimate), prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (coercive), and welfare disbursal (reward).
Other Frameworks
- Amitai Etzioni (A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations, 1961) identified coercive, remunerative and normative power. Each tends to produce its own kind of involvement: alienative, calculative or moral.
- Max Weber grounded legitimate power in tradition, charisma and legal-rational rules.
- Michael Mann (The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1, 1986) traced social power to four overlapping networks, the IEMP model: ideological, economic, military and political.
Assessment
The typology explains how influence works and when it succeeds, and actors use these bases whether or not they have names for them. But it is agent-centred social psychology. It misses power lodged in structures such as class, caste or patriarchy, and the shaping of preferences that Steven Lukes called power’s third dimension.
Conclusion
Power rarely rests on one base. Durable rule blends coercion held in reserve with legitimacy, expertise and identification. In the digital age, information has become the base that sustains all the others.